Fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network architectures are a class of broadband network architectures in which optical fiber is used as the communication media all the way to each customer's home. By using optical fiber as the communication media all the way to each customer's home, FTTH networks can be used to provide such home customers with broadband bandwidth levels associated with fiber optic communication.
The fiber optic cable that terminates at each customer's home is referred to here as the “fiber drop.” Installation of each fiber drop typically requires physical access to the customer's home and surrounding area in order to dig up the customer's yard and/or surrounding area for burying the fiber drop cable. Physical access to the customer's home is also required to terminate the fiber drop at the customer's home. As a consequence, installing fiber drops, can account for up to thirty percent of the capital expense of deploying a FTTH network and can delay the deployment of a FTTH network.
Third generation (3G) or fourth generation (4G) cellular network technology can be used to provide broadband bandwidth to customer end nodes in a wireless manner. However, the majority of customer end nodes in cellular networks are mobile. As a result, cellular networks (including 3G or 4G cellular networks) are designed to support the mobility of the customer end nodes, which can reduce the amount of broadband bandwidth that can be provided using such 3G or 4G technology. Moreover, typically cellular networks use omni-directional antennas or large angle (90° and 120°) sector antennas and point-to-multipoint wireless communication links, which may need increased power levels and reduce the amount of frequency reuse that can be achieved.
Within a customer's premises, it is common to implement a wireless local area network using wireless communication technology that implements one or more of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 family of wireless standards. That is, such wireless communication technology is implemented on the customer side of the demarcation point that separates the telecommunication service provider's equipment and the customer's equipment (also referred to as “customer premises equipment” or “CPE”). Moreover, such wireless local area networks (WLANs) are implemented using unlicensed radio frequency spectrum.